"So you have often regretted not being able to read," said Cornelius. "I should just like to know on what occasions."
"Troth," she said, laughing, "to read all the letters which were written to me."
"Oh, you received letters, Rosa?"
"By hundreds."
"But who wrote to you?"
"Who! why, in the first place, all the students who passed over the Buytenhof, all the officers who went to parade, all the clerks, and even the merchants who saw me at my little window."
"And what did you do with all these notes, my dear Rosa?"
"Formerly," she answered, "I got some friend to read them to me, which was capital fun, but since a certain time--well, what use is it to attend to all this nonsense?--since a certain time I have burnt them."
"Since a certain time!" exclaimed Cornelius, with a look beaming with love and joy.
Rosa cast down her eyes, blushing. In her sweet confusion, she did not observe the lips of Cornelius, which, alas! only met the cold wire-grating. Yet, in spite of this obstacle, they communicated to the lips of the young girl the glowing breath of the most tender kiss.
At this sudden outburst of tenderness, Rosa grew very pale,--perhaps paler than she had been on the day of the execution. She uttered a plaintive sob, closed her fine eyes, and fled, trying in vain to still the beating of her heart.
And thus Cornelius was again alone.
Rosa had fled so precipitately, that she completely forgot to return to Cornelius the three bulbs of the Black Tulip.